21 million sign up for Medicare prescription drug program

Kristina Herrndobler, Hearst Newspapers

Published
4:00 am PST, Friday, December 23, 2005

2005-12-23 04:00:00 PDT Washington -- More than 21 million Medicare recipients are signed up for the new federal prescription drug coverage that starts Jan. 1, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said Thursday.

Of that total, about 1 million recipients had no prescription drug coverage before, Leavitt said.

The rest were automatically covered under the new program. They consist of Medicaid recipients or members of the Medicare Advantage program or retirees who had drug coverage through former employers or unions. The latter group was included because the government will begin subsidizing the costs of that coverage.

The drug benefit program has been heavily criticized for being too complicated and difficult for seniors to understand, but Leavitt said these numbers showed that it was off to a strong start.

The figures represent the number of people who were enrolled during the first 28 days the program was offered. Leavitt's staff expects another 500,000 people who now have no prescription drug coverage to enroll by the end of January.

"If you got good coverage now, Medicare is helping you keep that coverage and helping pay for it," said Mark McClellan, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

About 43 million people are eligible for drug coverage, but Leavitt said his goal is to enroll between 28 million and 30 million people during its first year.

"There is a lot of work still to do, but we are encouraged by the results," Leavitt said during a conference call.